Mary Fay, a Republican member of the West Hartford Town Council, shares why she voted in favor of an ‘Ordinance Authorizing the Use of Automated Traffic Enforcement Safety Devices.’

By Mary Fay

On Tuesday night, the Town Council was faced with a very challenging vote regarding making our roads safer. I struggled with my decision, and ultimately voted yes.

West Hartford is in the midst of a road safety crisis. Speeding, blowing through stop lights and stop signs, passing on the right, right on reds where prohibited, left on reds, and so many traffic infractions occur routinely. At the same time, our police officers are at capacity with other public safety priorities and are unable to build  a traffic enforcement unit to scale enough to improve results due to expense constraints. Accidents are far too frequent, with several resulting in deaths, tragically. Add in ever increasing budgets and taxes, other funding pressures, and additional expense escalations are unsustainable.

What to do?

We have been studying traffic systems to improve safety for some time. My initial reaction on installing cameras was a hard no, as they can present infringements upon individual liberties. I generally do not like surveillance, invasion of privacy, and “big brother.” And then we had yet another pedestrian death. Springtime means more walkers, runners, and bikers, on our roads.

Doing nothing to improve road safety started to seem irresponsible to me. Increasing  police Staffing beyond what is approved by adding law enforcement professionals is not attainable.

The real answer would have been to stop the over development of thousands of apartment units that has happened in the recent past and continues steadily.

These apartments add cars, visitors, more traffic, and non-resident traffic. They strain resources. Now it’s too late. They’ve been approved and they’re coming on line. Even worse, some of these developments, in single family zones, come with the expense of tax abatements, site abatement, reduced parking requirements, and tree cutting that will cause further harm to the liveability of West Hartford.

For the record, in single family zones, I believe West Hartford should pursue over 55+ single family developments. They are badly needed. People want to age at home.  East Hartford has two such developments, South Windsor is in the process; many towns are in the planning stage. These developments are attractive, desirable, easy to maintain, affordable, and allow seniors the opportunity to sell the family home, stay in the town they raised their families in their new, more manageable home. These places are much needed and sell out quickly!

Given the current environment, cameras, which result in traffic fines for offending cars, seem like the second-best choice to address a big problem, as adding more police is not currently feasible. The cameras are being funded by a federal grant, will adhere to legislative civil liberties criteria, and will have a due process and appeals process. Locations will be announced. West Hartford will be implementing as a pilot program lasting 18 months. Then the program will be evaluated and based on results, will approved or scrapped.

We need to do everything we can to maintain a high standard of public safety and save lives. Of course, having law enforcement monitor traffic would be ideal, if West Hartford had unlimited resources. A camera pilot program can prove effective in educating, changing behavior, saving lives and making our roads safer for everyone.  I hope this helps residents under stand why, as a true conservative, I voted yes to improve public safety, and my common sense approach to tackling problems and finding solutions.